How-To

In this new series, we’ll be looking at features of GravityView and the awesome things you can do with them. In this post, we’ll explore the ways you can search through your entries.

The search functionality is one of the most important aspects to building an application with Gravityview. If you have hundreds or thousands of entries, you’ll naturally want a way to search through them!

How to Add the Search Widget

Before you do anything, you’ll want to add the search bar to your site. To do this, simply add a widget on the View page. You can add a widget above or below your fields and on the right, left, or center.

Once you’ve decided where to put the widget, press the Add Widget field. Then, click or drag it into your View.

To customize the search options, press the blue gear icon next to the field. The options are divided into three parts, the first two of which are pretty straightforward.

Search Layout: here, you can choose to display the search fields horizontally, side-by-side, or on top of each other, vertically.

Show Clear Button: If this is enabled, there will be a “clear” button next to the search bar. If you press this button, the search bar will be cleared.

The Search Field Manager: Here, you can add and customize the fields that your search bar will search through. Let’s talk about this in more detail.

By default, everything will be searched through. But what if you want your search bar to only search through certain fields? No problem.

To do that, click the little green plus sign. You’ll first notice that a new option called “Search Mode” has appeared:

Match Any Fields: If this is enabled, entries will appear in search results if the search query is found in at least one of the fields. It doesn’t need to match all of the fields. This is useful if you want any relevant results to be displayed.

Match All Fields: If this is enabled, entries will only appear if they match all of your search fields. This is useful if the search results are only relevant if they are very specific. For example, a search for “Mexican restaurants” in “New York City” is only relevant if both fields are true – you aren’t looking for an Italian restaurant in New York City and you aren’t looking for Mexican restaurants located in a far-off city.

Now let’s talk about the search fields themselves. The options available will depend on the field’s type.

For example, for our “Country” field, we can made the Search input type to be Select, Radio or Links.

Each of these options will display the search options in a separate way. We probably don’t want to use the Radio input or Links type for the Country field, as they take up a lot of space – but you may want to.

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Finally, remember that you can change the label of the field to whatever you like – it doesn’t need to be the same as the field’s name.

Display Only the Search Bar at First

Do you want to only display entries if they match a search? In other words, do you want to display a search bar by default, then show entries after a search is performed?

For example, you may have a directory of thousands of people. You don’t want to display all of them at one time. Instead, you only want to display an entry after searching for it.

To do this, simply go to the Settings panel in your View and enable Hide View data until search is performed.

Your View will now only show entries after you perform a search.

Linking to a Search

Want to have a page that automatically links to search results? It’s easy! All you need to do is perform a search and then copy the URL, then paste it on a page.

This is useful if you want to use links to display particular combinations of search results, rather than requiring the user to select the options themselves.

In this new series, we’ll be looking at features of GravityView and the awesome things you can do with them. In our first post, we’ll look at the many ways you can sort, feature and filter your entries. Let’s get started!

Filtering and Sorting: The Where and How

What do filtering and sorting mean in GravityView? It’s simple:

Filtering lets you choose which entries will appear in your View, according to parameters that you set. For example, you can only show entries that were added after a certain date. Entries that don’t fit your criteria will be filtered out.

Sorting lets you reorganize how your entries will be displayed in the View. For example, you can choose to have your entries sorted by the Last Name field.

The bulk of the filtering and sorting options are available in the GravityView default options panel at the bottom of the View page, under Filter & Sort. To use the more advanced filtering options, you’ll need the Advanced Filtering extension.

Let’s go through each option and see what you can do with it!

Column Sorting

If this option is enabled, a tiny arrow will appear at the top of all your columns. If you click the arrow, the entries will be sorted by that field. For example, if you clicked on Industry, the entries will be sorted by that field.

Sort by Field

This lets you choose the field by which the entries are sorted. If you are creating a staff directory, for example, you’d probably want to select the Last field. That way, your staff members will be sorted by their last name.

Sort Direction

This option lets you choose how your entries will be listed.

ASC (Ascending): From A to Z, or lower numbers to higher numbers.

DESC (Descending): From Z to A, or higher numbers to lower numbers. This is useful if you want to display a list of numbers from large to small.

Random: In a random order. Note that this order will be randomly generated every time the View is reloaded.

Filter by Start Date and Filter by End Date

These two options let you only display entries that adhere to certain dates. You can either select a specific date, like 4 February 2019, or you can use relative dates, like one week ago.Read the full list of relative dates here.

Filter by Start Date

If you enter a date here, entries will only be displayed if they were submitted on or after this date. For example, if you input January 1, 2019, entries will only be displayed in your View if they were created on or after January 1, 2019.

Filter by End Date

This is the opposite of Filter by Start Date. If you enter a date here, entries will only be displayed if they were submitted before the date. For example, if you input January 1, 2019, entries will only be displayed in your View if they were created before January 1.

Advanced Filter

Finally, let’s talk about the Advanced Filter options. You can create incredibly powerful filters by adding multiple unique conditions. You can add as many filters as you like. This is very useful if you want to create Views that have very specific purposes. To add a filter, just click the Add a Condition button.

For example, you may want to create a View that only displays entries that have the answer Yes for the Payment Status field.

Or, if you are building a university student directory, you may want to only display entries that have the answer 2019 for the Graduation Year field. The options available for each field depend on what type of field it is. The possibilities are endless!

One of the most common real-world uses for this filter is to limit the entries displayed to those created by the current user. For example, you may want to create a View that displays all the items a user added to the database. To do this, add a new filter and select Created by + is + Currently Logged in.

Also note that any search results within the View will also be filtered through these rules. So, don’t worry – the user won’t be able to access the data via a search.

Sort Your Entries Alphabetically

Want to organize your entires alphabetically? With our A-Z Filters extension, it’s easy to create an alphabetized directory. You can choose which field to filter by, which alphabet to use (over 26 languages are supported), and if you want the letters to be capitalized or lower case.

This is perfect for staff directories or student databases. Simply select the Last Name filter as the filter by selection.

Highlight Certain Entries

To make an entry featured, simply click the star next to your entry on the Forms > Entries page.

By default, featured entries will be highlighted but still listed in the standard order. But, what if you want your Featured Entries to the top of the listed results? It only takes one click – go to the settings panel at the bottom of your View. Under View Settings, scroll to the bottom and check the Move Featured Entries to Top option. Voila!

If you’re running a paid directory or job board, the Featured Entries extension is perfect for you. You can easily charge your customers to make their entries featured + listed at the top of the View.

Want to read more about using GravityView at universities, schools, and other educational institutions?Check out our guide.

In this post, we’ll walk through creating a student database. Here’s what our final product will look like (using the default Twenty Seventeen theme):

Here’s what it will be able to do:

View all student profiles at once

Search and filter through student profiles

View a specific student’s profile

Automatically filter through students

Allow administrators to modify student information directly on the front end of the website

Let’s get started!

Step 1: Create a Submission Form

First, we’ll need to create a form in Gravity Forms for adding new students. To do this, go to Forms > New Form on your WordPress Sidebar.

Tip: Already have a directory file of students? Not to worry. Importing it into Gravity Forms and GravityView is super simple with our Import Entries plugin. You can import CSV files in seconds.

Give your form a title – let’s call it Add a New Student to the Database.

Now we need to add the relevant fields. These will depend on the nature of your school (university vs. elementary school, etc.) Some common options include:

First and Last Name

ID Number

Email

Photo

Date of Birth

Year of Graduation

Locker Number

Department

Enrolled Courses

…and so on.

Let’s add all of the listed items above to our form. To add a field to your form, simply drag it to the left. You can also just click the field to add it.

Tip: Want to make sure that all of the fields are filled out? Be sure to enable “Required” at the bottom of each field.

For First and Last Name, add the Name field, which is under Advanced Fields.

For ID Number, we can add a Number Field, which is under Standard Fields. If your ID number includes letters or other non-numeral symbols, you’ll need to use a Single Line Text field.

Once you add a Number field, click on it to edit its options. Rename it to “ID Number.”

For Email we’ll use the Advanced Field, Email.

For Photo, we’ll use a File Upload field, which is under Advanced Fields. Once you add it, click on it to change a few options:

Rename it “Student Photo”

Type “png, jpg, jpeg, gif” into the Allowed file extensions option. This will only allow users to upload image files (and not other types of files.)

Type a number into Maximum File Size option. Typically, an image should not be more than 10-15 MB.

For Date of Birth, we’ll add a Date field, which is under Advanced Fields. Rename the field to “Date of Birth.” We’ll change the date format to be yyyy/mm/dd. You can also add a calendar icon, if you wish.

For Graduation Year, we’ll add a Radio Buttons field, which is under Standard Fields. Rename it and add an option for every graduation year. To be safe, add at least 10-15 years into the future. Alternatively, we could use another Date field. This will future-proof your field at the cost of being more cumbersome to use.

For Locker Number, we’ll add a Number field and rename it.

For Department / School, we’ll use a Checkbox field. This will allow students to belong to multiple departments or schools. For example, a university student may be a double major in Biology and Philosophy, and thus would belong to the “School of Sciences” and the “School of Humanities.” Be sure to add all of your school/university’s departments.

For Major, we’ll add another Checkbox field. Just like the Department field above, this will allow a student to have more than one major.

Finally, for Enrolled Courses, we’ll use a Checkbox field. This will allow an administrator to add a student to multiple courses.

Conditional Logic

Want to only display a particular field if a certain option is selected? For example, you may want to create a specific Enrolled Courses field for each major, rather than have all the courses for all majors listed in one field. That way, only the relevant course options will be displayed.

To do this, you’ll need to use Conditional Logic. First, go to the field that you want to be “activated” only under certain conditions. For example, this may be the Major: Medicine – Enrolled Courses field. Under the Advanced tab, check the box next to Enable Conditional Logic.

You can now choose when this field will be displayed (or hidden). For our example, choose Major + is + Medicine. Now, this field will be hidden until the Medicine choice is selected for the Major field.

You can create complex logic trees using this functionality.

Press update to finalize and save our form. As a final step, you’ll want to add this form to a page. To do this, create a WordPress page and click Add Form.

Now that we’ve created the form, let’s see what it looks like!

Looks good! If you test it out, you’ll see that the Enrolled Courses: Medicine field is using the conditional logic we set up.

Tip: You will want to change the confirmation message. You can do this on the Settings page of your form.

Part 2: Creating a View

Note: For this part, we’ll assume that you have already added a number of students to your database.

Now that we have a form, let’s create a View. A View will allow us to display and modify the entries from the front end of our website, without having to log into the back end.

To start, go to Views – New View on your WordPress sidebar.

Let’s call our View “Student Database.” Under Data Source, select the form we previously created – Add a New Student to the Database.

Then, we need to choose a View Type. For our purposes, we want either a Table layout or a Listing layout. The table layout will display all of our entries (students) on one page, in a table, while the Listing layout will display each student individually in a listing. Unless you have very few students, you’ll probably want to use the Table layout.

Now we’re on the View Configuration page. Here’s what we want to create:

A Multiple Entries page, where we can view, search, and filter through student profiles

A Single Entry page for each student, where we can see all the details (fields) of a particular entry (student)

The Edit Entry page, where we can modify the details of a particular entry (student)

Let’s start with the Multiple Entries Context. At the top, under Above Entries Widgets, we want to add some widgets. Click Add Widget and then click on each item to add it to the View. Note that you can also add widgets below the Entries (in the Below Entries Widgets section).

You can customize how it looks by adding it to the Top,Left or Right area.

Show Pagination Info

This will show us how many student entries are currently visible. For example, 20 of 1,000

Page Links

This will add navigation links to multiple pages

Search Bar

This will let us search through the database for a particular stduent

A-Z Entry Filter

This will let us filter students by their first or last name

Once we add the widget to the View, you can customize its options by clicking on the blue gear icon. Depending on what functionality you need, there are many possibilities:

Edit the Page Links widget to enable show each page number, rather than a summary (e.g. 1 2 3 … 8)

Edit the Search Bar widget to customize what is searched through. By default, it will search through all fields. However, you may want to specify it to only search through a particular field, like Name. You probably also want to change “Search Entries” to “Search Students”

Edit the A-Z Entry Filter widget to choose which field will be used for alphabetization. You will likely want to select Last, the field for Last Names

Once you’re done adding widgets, scroll down to Entries Fields. This is the main part of our student database. Since the Multiple Entries context is only a broad overview of the students, we’ll only want to add a few specific fields. (We’ll add all of the detailed fields to the Single Entry Context.)

For this example, we’ll add the following three fields:

Name

ID Number

Department / School

Then, click on the blue gear icon next to the Name field. Enable Link to single entry at the bottom. This will allow us to click on the student’s name and see their details.

Our Multiple Entries context should now be good to go!

Settings

Finally, let’s scroll down to the View Settings at the bottom of the View. There are a lot of options here for customizing your View. For our purposes, there are a handful of settings we should be aware of:

Under View Settings, you should enable Prevent Direct Access. If you enable this setting, the View will only be accessible on pages where you specifically embed it via a shortcode. This is very important if you want to keep your View private or restricted to particular users.

Under Filter and Sort, we can customize our filtering options. This is useful if you want to sort students by a particular field by default (like Last Name). You can also enable sorting by column, which will let you sort students by a field displayed in the View by clicking an arrow. In our example, you can sort the students by Name, ID Number, or Department / School.

Now, let’s take a look at our View! Press Publish and then View on website after the page reloads.

As you can see, our students are now listed in the database.

We can click on a letter to filter them by name

We can search through the students

And we can click on different page numbers.

If you click on a student’s name, you’ll be taken to the Single Entry page. Since we haven’t set this up yet, we’ll do it now! Click Add fields to Single Entry.

On the Single Entry Context, we want to add all the details of a specific student:

Once you’ve added the fields, click Update and then View on website. Now click on the name field for an entry. As you can see, our Single Entry Context now displays all of the information about our student.

Note: If you used conditional logic to create specific fields earlier, be sure to add all of these fields to the Single Entry View. By default, empty fields will be hidden. This means that the field will only be displayed if it has content.

Edit Entry

Finally, the Edit Entry page lets administrators change the content of an entry’s fields. An “Edit” link is at the bottom of the Single Entry page by default.

Want to read more about using GravityView at universities, schools, and other educational institutions?Check out our guide.

If you’re a university, or other educational institution, you no doubt have a team of academic advisors. Why not make a directory for them like New Mexico State University’s, featured above? In this guide, we’ll walk you through making a directory for yourself.

Here is what our final application will look like:

Let’s get started!

Step 1: Create the form

First, we need to make a form for submitting a new academic advisor. To do this, go to Forms > New Form on your WordPress sidebar.

Then, title your form “Submit a New Academic Advisor.”

Now we need to add fields to our form. We need the following information about our advisors:

Name

Job Title

Email

Phone Number

Photo

Office Address

About / Biography

Let’s add a field to our form for each of these items.

For Name, we can use the Name field, which is under Advanced Fields.

For Job Title, let’s use a Single Line Text field, which you can find under Standard Fields.

Click on the field to rename it.

Tip: Want to make sure that all of the fields are filled out? Be sure to enable “Required” at the bottom of each field.

For Email, let’s use the Email field, found under Advanced Fields.

For Phone Number, we’ll use the Phone field, also under Advanced Fields.

For Photo, we’ll need to use a File Upload field and customize it.

Rename the field to “Photo”

Type jpg, gif, png, pdf into the Allowed File Extensions setting. This will restrict uploads to only these file types.

Type a number into the Maximum File Size setting. Typically, an image should not be more than 5-10MB.

For Office Address, we can use the Address, under Advanced Fields.

Once you add the field, you can customize how specific you want the address to be. For example, if your directory is for a single college campus, you can probably restrict the input to only Street Address. Alternatively, if you have multiple offices scattered around many cities or countries, you can include the City and Country options.

Finally, for About / Biography, we want to use a Paragraph Text field. You can customize the size of the text input area under the Appearance tab.

All that’s left to do is add our form to a page. But first, save your form by clicking Update! Create a new WordPress page and give it a title. Add your form by clicking the Add Form button.

Now save and preview your page.

Our form looks good! Now we need to build the view.

Step 2: The View

Note: For this part, we’ll assume that you have already submitted a number of entries via your form.

The view is the main part of our application. It will allow us to “view” the academic advisor directory on the front end of our website, without requiring the user to log in.

To create a view, first go to Views > New View on your WordPress sidebar.

Title your view “Academic Advisor Directory” and choose the form we created (Submit a New Academic Advisor) as your Data Source.

Now choose a layout. Let’s use a List layout, as we want to display more information about each advisor.

If the physical location of your academic advisors is important, you can also use the Map view. This will display your entries on a map according to their Address field.

Now we’re on the View Configuration page. Let’s start by customizing the Multiple Entries page.

At the top, let’s add a Search Bar widget.

We want to rename it, as “Search Entries” sounds a little impersonal. To do this, click on the blue gear icon next to the field. Then, rename it “Search Advisors”.

At the bottom, under Below Entries Widgets, let’s add Show Pagination Info to the left and Page Links to the right. These will show how many entries are displayed on this page and links to other pages, respectively.

Now scroll back up to the Entries Fields section. To add a field, click +Add Field next to the specific section.

For Listing Title, select the Name field

For Subheading, select the Job Title field

For Image, select the Photo field

Under Other Fields, add About / Biography

Under Footer Left, add Office Address

And Under Footer Right, add Email and Phone

We want to remove the labels for each of these fields. Why? Because the field content is already obvious – we don’t need to label someone’s name or their photo.

To remove a label, click on the blue gear icon next to a field. Then, uncheck Show Label. Repeat this process for all of our fields.

By default, the Address field will have a Map It link beneath the field content. This link opens the address in Google Maps. To remove it, uncheck Show Map Link in the settings.

Let’s finally take a look at our view to see how it looks.

Pretty snappy!

The Single Entry View

What if we want to add more information about an advisor on their own, individual page? Or what if an advisor’s “About Me” is too long to easily fit in the Multiple Entries page? Then we need to use the Single Entry view.

Start by clicking on the blue gear icon next to the Photo field. At the bottom, enable Link to single entry. Do the same thing for the Name field.

Now both the advisor’s photo and name will link to their single entry page. When a user clicks on their photo or name, they will be taken to a more detailed page – the Single Entry page.

You may also want to limit the number of words shown in the About/Biography field on the Multiple Entries page. For example, their biography may be thousands of words long. To do this, edit the field and type in a number.

Now let’s edit the Single Entry view context itself. Click on the Single Entry tab. The layout is essentially the same. We simply have more space.

For Listing Title, select the Name field

For Subheading, select the Job Title field

For Image, select the Photo field

Under Other Fields, add About / Biography

Under Footer Left, add Office Address

And Under Footer Right, add Email and Phone

Remember to uncheck the Show Label option for all of the fields. If we had more fields, we could add them here too.

Save and preview your view. Click on an advisor’s photo or name and you’ll see their single entry page.

Everything looks as it should! At the bottom of the entry, you’ll also see an Edit Entry button. If you click on it, you’ll be taken to the Edit Entry page, where you can edit the fields of the entry.

View Settings

Finally, let’s briefly talk about the View Settings panel at the bottom of the View Configuration screen. There are many settings here, but only a few are directly relevant to our current project.

Number of Entries Per Page

Under View Settings, you can choose how many entries will be displayed per page.

Under Filter and Sort, you can choose how the entries will be displayed. By default, they will be displayed in order of their date created (newest to oldest). Let’s change them to be ordered by last name. To do this, select Last under Sort by field.

That just about covers our guide to building an Academic Advisor directory! Have you built a similar application with GravityView? Let us know!

One of the most common (and powerful) uses of Gravity Forms and GravityView is as a job applicant management system. With Gravity Forms, you can easily create a system that allows job seekers to submit an application for the job. Then, with GravityView, you can let decision makers review, reject, and comment on these applications directly on a (private) web page, without having to log into the back end of your WordPress website.

A page that allows job applicants to fill out a form and apply for a job

A front end page (View) that lets the employer view the submitted job applications, approve/deny them, and leave comments

Here’s what our final product will look like:

Step 1: Create the form

In Gravity Forms, create your form and give it a name. Add the fields relevant to your job position.

Usually, this includes the following Advanced fields:

Name

Phone

Email

Website

We’ll also need to customize a few fields:

File Upload (for resumes, CVs, or other files)

Cover letter (paragraph text)

Tip: you can customize the File Upload field. We recommend renaming it “Resume”, limiting the file size to less than 15 MB, and limiting file extensions to PDF or Txt.

You may also want to create fields for social media accounts:

LinkedIn

Twitter

Github

You can also add fields for other questions, such as…

What countries are you authorized to work in?

What time zone are you located in?

How soon can you start?

Have you worked remotely before?

…and so on…

Finally, we want to add a special GravityView field: Approve/Reject. This will add a field to the entry that allows the employer to approve or reject submitted entries. This is useful if you receive a large number of applications that are incomplete, didn’t follow the directions, or otherwise are invalid.

Tip: Add a “reading test” field to make sure that applicants follow instructions and read your entire job ad. This is a common practice among employers.

Simply add a note in your job ad saying “The code word is ‘spaceship’ and then add field that asks “What’s the code word?” to your form. If the applicant didn’t write the correct answer, you can be sure they didn’t read your ad!

Once your form is finished, create a new WordPress page and add your form. Preview it to make sure everything looks good! If it does, we can move on to the next step.

Step 2: Create your View

Now that we’ve got a form, it’s time to create a View. A View will allow you to view all of the submitted entries on the front end of your website. This is useful in a lot of ways!

To create a View, go to Views > New View on your WordPress Sidebar. Give your View a name – let’s call it “Submitted Job Applications.”

We’ll want to select the form we created in Step 1. Then, we need to pick a View type. For our purposes, the Table View makes the most sense.

Now we’re on the View Configuration page. Let’s customize the Multiple Entries configuration first. This is the “default” page which will display all (or a large number) of the submitted entries at one time.

At the top, we’ll add a few useful widgets. To do this, click +Add Widget.

Show Pagination Info (to show how many entries are currently displayed)

Page Links, to allow us to navigate to other pages (in case we have a lot of applicants)

Search Bar, to allow us to search through the submitted applications

Then, under Entries Fields, we’ll start by adding the Name field. Click on the field settings icon (the gear icon next to the field) and enable Link to single entry. This will link the applicant’s name field on the Multiple Entries context to their specific application page (the Single Entry context).

We can add many other fields to the Multiple Entries page, depending on what we want to build. We’ll save most of the applicant’s detailed fields for the Single Entry page. The goal of the Multiple Entries page is to provide a high-level overview of all the applicants.

Let’s add the Entry Date field. This way, we can view when the application was submitted (and filter/sort the entries by date.)

Next, let’s add the Approval Status of the entry. This will display whether the entry has been approved or not. We’ll add a way to approve/reject an entry on its Single Entry page.

Finally, let’s add a Votes Rating field. This will display an aggregate up/down rating of the applicant. This functionality is useful if you want your decision makers to up vote or down vote candidates.

Let’s scroll down to the bottom of the page and customize some settings. Under View Settings, we can enable Move Featured Entries to Top, which will move “starred” entries to the top. You can star an entry from the WordPress backend GravityView page. Read more about Featured Entries here.

Under Filter and Sort, we can filter our submitted entries by Date Created (or another field.)

Finally, under Ratings and Reviews, we want to check Enable entry review. We can choose between a 5-Star rating or an up/down rating. For our example, we’ll use the up/down option.

The Single Entry Page

Now, let’s customize the Single Entry page by clicking on the tab. This is the “details” page, where we’ll include all of the submitted application details. Click “Add Field” and add the fields from our form.

Name

Phone

Email

Website

Resume/CV file upload

Cover letter

LinkedIn

Twitter

Github

What countries are you authorized to work in?

Have you worked remotely before?

What is the code word?

We can also add the Entry Date field to display when the application was submitted.

Now, let’s add some special fields.

Approve Entries and Approval Status

These two fields will allow you to approve or reject an entry directly from the View. This is useful for discarding incomplete, empty, or spam submissions. Or, if the applicant didn’t answer the “did you read this?” question correctly. ;)

Entry Notes

This field will allow you to leave comments and notes on the entry. You can easily note important information about the applicant.

Edit Entry

Finally, this field will link to the Edit Entry page, which lets you modify the submitted data. This probably isn’t extremely useful for a job management system, but you might need it!

Votes Rating

Finally, let’s add the Votes Rating widget. This will display the total ratings + reviews on the entry.

Here are the fields our Single Entry View contains:

Step 3: Add your form and View to (separate) pages

Now that we have created a form and View, we’ll want to add them to (separate) pages.

To do this, create a WordPress page and then press the Add Form or Add View button, which is just below the Page title. You can then customize the options for your embedded Form/View.

We’ll want to create and publish two separate pages:

One public-facing page for the form, which will allow individuals to submit their application

One private page for the View, which will allow decision makers in the company to review and comment on the submitted applications

Step 4: Test it out!

Now that everything is up and running, let’s take it for a spin! Let’s submit a mock applicant and see how it looks. Go to your page with the embedded form and fill it out with sample data.

Then, after you press submit, go to the page with the embedded View. You should see your submitted applicant:

As you can see, we have the applicant’s name, the date the entry was submitted, their approval status, and a votes rating counter. Click on the name (the underlined link) to navigate to the Single Entry page for the applicant. We’ll now see the rest of the submitted data:

If you scroll to the bottom, you’ll see the special fields that we specifically added:

We can add a note to the job application (and even email it directly to the applicant)

And we can rate the applicant up or down by filling out a review.

That about covers the process of setting up a basic job application management system! With GravityView, the possibilities are nearly endless – no matter what functionality you need to have, we’ve got you covered.

Allows administrators to comment on these issues and email the comment directly to the submitter

Let’s get started!

Step 1: Create your form

First, we’ll need to create a form. To do this, go to Forms > New Form on your WordPress sidebar.

Name your form “Feedback Submission Form.”

Tip: Already have a directory file of students? Not to worry. Importing it into Gravity Forms and GravityView is super simple with our Import Entries plugin. You can import large CSV files quickly.

Now, we need to add some fields to our form. We want to get the following information from our readers:

Name

Email

Topic: What is the feedback / idea about?

Feedback explanation

Tip: Want to make sure all of your fields are filled out? Enable “Required” in the settings of each field.

For Name, we can use the Name field, which is under Advanced Fields.

For Email, we can use the Email field, which is also under Advanced Fields.

For Topic, we have a few options, depending on our particular needs.

A Checkbox field will allow the user to select multiple topics. For example, their feedback might be about both Housing and Financial Aid.

A Radio Button field will only let a user select one topic. This is useful if you want to categorize submissions into very narrow groups. This field also allows you to enable the “Other” choice, which lets users fill in their own answer.

A simple Single Line Text field is the simplest option. However, it won’t let you categorize or filter your entries via this field.

For this entry, let’s go with the Radio Button field. After you add the field, don’t forget to input a description and the answer options.

We’ll also enable the “Other choice” option. This will let users write in a separate option themselves.

Tip: To move the Description above the choices, go to the Appearance tab and edit the Description Placement option.

Finally, for the Feedback field, we want to use a Paragraph Text field. Be sure to rename it. If you want to make the field larger or smaller, you can do so on the Appearance tab.

Once you’re done creating your form, press the Update button in the bottom right of the screen to save it.

Now that our form is finished, let’s add it to a page. Create a new WordPress page and click the Add Form button.

Save and view your page:

Looks good! If you want to change the post-submission message, you can do that on the Settings page of your form, on the Confirmations tab.

Now let’s move on to the next step: Creating a View.

Step 2: Creating a View

Note: For this part, we’ll assume that many feedback entries have already been submitted.

A View will let us display our feedback directly on the front end of the website, without having to log into the back end. In other words, it will let us display our feedback entries on a public web page.

To create a View, first go to Views > New View on your WordPress sidebar.

Title your View “Feedback Board” and select the form we created (“Feedback Submission Form”) as the data source.

Now, we need to pick a layout. There are a few options, depending on the type of feedback board we want to create.

We can use a Table View layout, which will display an overview of the submitted feedback on one page. However, we’ll have to click on each feedback entry in order to read the full description.

Alternatively, we could use a Listing View layout, which will display all of entries’ fields at one time, on a single page.

Since we only have a few fields, it makes the most sense to use a Listing View layout. We’ll actually design our View to display everything on a single page – that is, the multiple entries page.

Now we’re on the View Configuration page. At the top, we can add some widgets to our Multiple Entries View context. Let’s add a Custom Content widget to the top and a Search Bar to the left.

To edit the Custom Content widget, click the blue gear icon next to it. Let’s write a brief message about the purpose of this page. Replace “form.html” in this example with a link to a page containing your form. We can also add a button to our form submission page using HTML. You can style this HTML using CSS. Read more about using CSS in GravityView here.

Finally, let’s also rename the Search Bar label to “Search Feedback”. To do this, click the blue gear icon again and rename the label.

Now, scroll down to the Below Entries Widgets section. Add a Show Pagination Info widget to the left and a Page Links widget to the right.

Now let’s add the entry fields themselves. Scroll back up to the Entries Fields section. This will be the main part of our entry.

For Listing Title, add the Topic field. This will display what topic this feedback is about.

For Subheading, add the Name field . Only add this field if you want the submitter’s name to be publicly visible. If you don’t want their name to be visible, leave this blank.

For Other Fields, add the Entry Date field and the Feedback field. This is where the feedback message will be displayed.

Under Footer Left, add the Entry Notes field. We’ll use this field as a place where administrators can comment on the feedback. Ergo, we’ll rename it Response(s) from Administration.

Tip: Hiding the label often makes the View look better. To do this, simply uncheck the Show Label box in the field’s settings panel. Let’s repeat this and hide the labels for each of the fields in our View except for Response(s) from Administration.

Here’s what our Entries Fields section looks like now:

Now let’s save and preview it.

Looking good! As you can see, our entire feedback board is on one page – we didn’t need to configure a single-entry View, because we don’t need to use it.

Add the View to a Page

Finally, we just need to add the View to a page. To do this, create a new WordPress page and click the Add View button.

Leaving Comments

Since we added an Entry Notes field (Response(s) from Administration), we can add comments and responses to our submitted feedback.

You can also send a copy of the note directly to the submitter’s email. This is useful if you want to notify the submitter that you’ve read their feedback.

By default, Entry Notes will only be visible by administrators. If you want these notes to be displayed publicly, you need to enable Display notes to users who are not logged-in? in the field’s settings panel.

Your comments will then be publicly visible.

And that’s how to create a feedback system similar to New Mexico State University’s.

Have you built a similar application with GravityView? Want to learn how to configure a different layout? Let us know!

Want to read more about using GravityView at universities, schools, and other educational institutions?Check out our guide.

In this post, we’ll create a searchable database for research projects. Our final product will look like this:

Our research projects database will have the following functionality:

Allow professors and researchers to post and continually update research projects

Allow students to browse and search through research projects

Let’s get started!

Step 1: Create a Form

First, you’ll need to create a form in Gravity Forms. To do this, go to Forms > New Form on your WordPress sidebar.

Name the form “Submit a New Research Project.” This form will allow professors and researchers to submit their projects to the database.

Now we need to add some fields to our form. We want each research project to have the following fields:

Project Name

Faculty Member

Keywords

Department

Description

Number of Students Sought

Number of Students Already Selected

Link to Application Page

Let’s go through and create a field for each one. To add a field to the form, click on it or drag it to the left into your form.

For Project Name, we’ll use a Single Line Text field. Be sure to rename it. You can also limit the field to a certain number of maximum characters.

For Faculty Member, we’ll use the Name field, which is under Advanced Fields. We could also just use a Single Line Text field – it depends on your particular needs.

Don’t forget to rename the Name field to “Faculty Member”. You can also add a description.

For Keywords, we have a few options. The simplest solution is to use a Paragraph Text field, which will let users type in any relevant keywords. You can also use a List field, which will allow you to keep each keyword separate.

For this example, we’ll stick with the standard Paragraph Text field.

Want to make the text input box smaller? Click on the Appearance tab in the field settings and change the Field Size option.

For the Department field, we want to use one of the following:

A Radio Button field, if a project can only belong to one department

A Dropdown if a project can only belong to one department + we want to keep our form as compact as possible

A Checkbox field, if a project can belong to more than one department.

We’ll go with a Dropdown for this example. Once you add the field, don’t forget to add your choices.

For Description, we want to use a Paragraph Text field field again.

For Number of Students Sought, we’ll use the Number field. If you anticipate researchers having projects with a non-specific number of students sought (e.g. 5-10, “as many as possible”, etc.) then you can also use a Single Line Text field.

For Number of Students Already Selected, we can also use a Number field. This field will be useful for researchers to update on a regular basis (more on how to do that later!)

Finally, for the Link to Application page, we can use the Advanced Field, Website. Don’t forget to rename it.

Now that we’ve created our form, let’s put it on a page. Press Update and then create a new WordPress post. Under the title bar, click Add Form and select the form we created.

Then save and view the page.

Everything looks good! Let’s move on to the next step: Creating a View.

Part 2: Creating a View

Note: For this part, we’ll assume that you’ve added a number of research projects to your form already. Already have a file of research projects and want to import it? Not a problem. Check out our Import Entries plugin.

Now that we have a form, we need to create a View. A View will let us display and modify this information on the front end of our WordPress website. To do this, go to Views > New View on your WordPress sidebar.

Title your View “Browse Research Projects” and select the form we previously created (“Submit a Research Project”) as your Data Source.

Now we need to chose a View layout. For this project, we want to use a Table layout. This will display our research projects in a table (that looks like a spreadsheet).

Now we are on the View Configuration page. We’ll start by customizing the Multiple Entries page. This is the “default” page that visitors will see upon navigating to our view.

At the top, we can add some widgets. Let’s add the Search Bar widget to the top.

To edit the settings of a widget, click the blue gear icon next to it. If you scroll down, we can also add widgets at the bottom, below the Entry fields. Let’s add Show Pagination Info and Page Links here.

Now, let’s add the entry fields themselves. To add a field, simply click +Add Field. Then, select the field you want to add.

Since our Multiple Entries page displays many entries at one time, we should only add a handful of entry fields. Let’s add the following:

Project Name

Keywords

Department

To edit the settings of a field, click the blue gear icon next to it. We want to link the Project Name field on the Multiple Entries page to its more detailed entry (called “the Single Entry page.”)

To do this, click the blue gear icon next to Project Name. Then, check the box next to Link to single entry.

Now let’s publish our View and see what it looks like. Click Publish then View on website.

Everything looks pretty good! If we click on a project name, we’ll be taken to the Single Entry page. We haven’t set this up yet, so let’s do it now.

The Single Entry page is the “more detailed” page for our entry. Since it is a single page that covers only one entry, we have more space for adding fields.

To add a field, click +Add Field. Be sure to add all of the fields we created.

Now save your View and preview it again. Click on a Project Name field and you’ll see the Single Entry view.

As you can see, all of our fields are listed. Everything looks good!

View Settings

Finally, at the bottom of the View Configuration page are View Settings. There are a number of options here, but two in particular are relevant for our research projects database.

Allow User Edit + Allow User Delete

If enabled, Allow User Edit and Allow User Delete (which are under View Settings) allow users to edit or delete their entries after they have submitted them.

The Edit functionality is particularly useful for our Number of Students Already Selected field, as it will allow researchers to conitnually update how many more students they need for their project.

Sort by Field

By default, all entries on the Multiple Entries page will be sorted by the date they are created. However, if you want to organize and filter the research studies by a different field, like Department or Faculty Member, you can do that here.

And that about wraps up our guide to creating a research study database with Gravity Forms and GravityView!

In an upcoming guide, we’ll walk through creating the other half of this project – a form and View for students applying to research projects.

Want to read more about using GravityView at universities, schools, and other educational institutions?Check out our guide.

In this post, we’re going to create a database of actors and actresses. Whether you’re a university, local community board, or just a small media company, you’ll find this guide useful!

Here’s what our application will look like:

…and here’s what it will do:

Allow actors and actresses to submit their information to a database + edit / revise it later

Allow filmmakers to search the database by personal characteristics, like skills, education, eye color, hair color, acting experience, and more

Tip: Already have a directory file of actors/actresses? Not to worry. Importing it into Gravity Forms and GravityView is super simple with our Import Entries plugin. You can import CSV or TSV files in ten seconds, flat.

Step 1: Create the Form

First, we’ll need to create a submission form. To do this, go to Forms > New Form on your WordPress sidebar.

Title your form Actor / Actress Submission Form. Note that actors and actresses will submit their information directly through this form.

Now we need to add fields to our form. Depending on the specific nature of your database, you will want to add different fields. Some typical choices might be:

Tip: Want to make sure that all of the fields are filled out? Be sure to enable “Required” at the bottom of each field.

Let’s add all of these fields to our form, one by one. To add a field to the form, simply click on it or drag it into the form.

For Name, we can use the Name field, which is under Advanced Fields.

For Email, we can use the Email field, which is also under Advanced Fields.

For Phone, let’s use the Phone field, also under Advanced Fields.

For Online Reel, we want to use the Website field, which is under Advanced Fields. You can rename it and add a description, if you like.

For Photo, we’ll want to use the File Upload field, which is under Advanced Fields. Once you add the field to your form, click on it to edit its settings. Rename it “Photo” and add a description (if you like). Then, type jpg, gif, png, pdf into the Allowed file extensions setting. This will restrict the file types allowed to image files. If you want to allow actors/actresses to upload more than one photo, enable Multi-File Upload. Finally, type in a maximum file size – typically an image shouldn’t be more than 5-10MB.

Tip: You can divide your form into separate sections by using the “Section” field.

For Representation, we’ll add a Radio Buttons field, which is under Standard Fields. Edit the field and rename it “Are you represented by an agency or firm?” Make the choices “Yes” and “No”.

What if the actor/actress is represented by an agency? Naturally, we’d want to know which one. To do this, we want to use some Conditional Logic.

Start by adding a Single Line Text field. Rename it “Name of Agency / Firm”.

Then, click on the Advanced tab. At the bottom, check the box next to Enable Conditional Logic. You’ll see a few settings appear.

We want this field to only appear if the Are you represented by an agency or firm? question is answered with a yes. So, customize the settings to Show this field if All of the following match:“Are you represented by an agency or firm?” is Yes.

Now this field will only appear if the question is answered with a Yes.

For the next field, Union Representation, we want the same basic functionality. Rather than create a form entirely from scratch, let’s just duplicate the two previous fields.

To duplicate a field, press the document button in the top right corner of the field. Duplicate both the Are you represented by an agency or firm? field and the Name of Agency / Firm field and then drag them below. Then, rename them to “Are you a member of a union?” and “Name of Union”. Make sure to change the conditional logic field to Are you a member of a union?

Now we want to add fields for physical description: height, weight, eye color, and so on. To do this, we’ll add a series of Single Line Text fields.

Radio buttons also make sense here, if you’d rather have users select between ranges or options, rather than a specific number (eye colors, for example).

Tip: To let users write in their own choice, check the Enable “other” choice option.

Now we want to add a field for Acting Experience. There are a few ways to do this, but probably the easiest is with the Paragraph Text field. This will allow the user to simply write about their work experience. You can also use the List Advanced Field, but it is more complicated to use. (We’ll use it in the next step.)

Be sure to rename the field and add a description. If you want the description to be above the field, you can change its location on the Appearance tab.

For the Education and Training field, we have the same dilemma. For this guide, we’ll keep it simple and use another Paragraph Text field.

Finally, under Skills we want to use the List field, which we mentioned previously. Read more about the List field here. This will let actors/actresses add specific skills they may possess.

Drag it from the Advanced Fields panel. Rename it and add a description. Then, click Enable multiple columns and type in “Skill” and “Proficiency.”

That should just about cover all of the fields we want! Click Update in the bottom right corner to save your form.

Now, we need to add the form to a WordPress page. To do this, create a new page and click on the Add Form button.

Publish your page and then view it.

Everything looks good! Now let’s move on to the next step: Creating a View.

Step 2: Creating the View

Note: For this part, we’ll assume that you already have a number of submissions to your actor / actress database.

Now that we have a form for submitting new actors and actresses to our database, let’s create a View for it. This will allow us to view, search, edit, and filter through all of our submissions.

To create a new View, go to Views > New View on your WordPress sidebar.

Name your View “Actor / Actress Database.” Then select the form Actor / Actress Submission Form as our Data Source.

You’ll now need to choose a View type. There are two basic View types – Table layout, which displays the entries in a text table, and List layout, which displays them in a series listings. For our purposes, we’ll use the List layout.

Now we’re on the View Configuration page. Here, we can customize how the View will look. Let’s start by adding some widgets to the top. For our actor/actress database, we definitely want to add a Search Bar.

If we want, we can add pagination information (Show Pagination Info) and page links (Page Links.) We can also add some custom content, like a description of this database’s purpose. For now, let’s just add a Search Bar.

To edit a widget, click on the blue gear icon next to it. You can customize the various options of each widget. For example, the Search widget lets you create separate search bars for each field, if you so desire.

Now, let’s configure the entries themselves. Since we are using the Listing layout, we have a number of field locations. To add a field, simply click + Add Field.

For Listing Title, choose the Name field. After you’ve added the field, click on the blue gear icon and click Link to single entry. This will add a link to the name field that links to the detailed (single entry) page of the actor/actress

We’ll leave the Subheading field blank

For Image choose the Photo field

For Other Fields, add a few of the most important fields. We’ll add Acting Experience,Education and Training, and Skills

In the footer, we’ll add Email, Phone, and Online Acting Real

Tip: hiding the label (“Photo”, “Name”, etc.) often makes the View look better. To hide a label, click the blue gear icon to edit the field’s settings and uncheck Show Label.

What is the GDPR?

The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) is a European Union regulation designed to protect private Personally Identifiable Information (PII) for all European Union citizens. In short, it is designed to protect users from unauthorized data collection from the websites they use. To do this, the GDPR requires that users give explicit consent to having their data collected.

The GDPR affects all companies that have users from the European Union, not only companies based in the E.U. If you have an online business or website, chances are that you will be affected by GDPR. Companies must be compliant by May 25, 2018.

What is Personally Identifiable Information (PII)?

Personally Identifiable Information is any information that can be used to identify a specific individual. This includes (but is not limited to):

Name

Address

ID Numbers

Web data such as:

Location

IP Address

Cookie data

RFID data

Biometric data

Racial, ethnic, or other demographic information

Political views and opinions

Sexual orientation and gender identity

Gravity Forms and Personally Identifiable Information

Any Gravity Forms field can potentially be used to gather the information listed above. Some information that can be considered sensitive and personally-identifiable (i.e. can tie the entry to a specific person) is gathered implicitly:

gf_entry.ip – A person’s IP address

gf_entry.user_agent – The type of browser being used

gf_entry.transaction_id – If making a purchase with the form, this is the payment ID connected to the payment processor

gf_entry.created_by – The WordPress user ID of the person

As such, if you are using Gravity Forms, you should be sure to make your website compliant!

GDPR and WordPress

The WordPress community is hard at work on some tools that help WordPress users get GDPR-compliant:

The easiest way to comply would be to add a required checkbox to any forms that need to be compliant. Adding a simple checkbox field that states something along the lines of “I consent to my submitted data being collected and stored” will usually do the trick.
Be sure to make it a required field, and the first part is done. This way, you’ll know that every submission is compliant because without providing consent, the submission would not complete.

As noted in the article, it’s very important to make this checkbox a required field. If your field is not required, any submitted entries that have not consented to data collection can be considered violations of GDPR.

User Data Requests and GravityView

Another part of GDPR-compliance requires that users are able to request and receive all of their personal information.

While the regulation merely requires that businesses provide the data “within a month”, we recommend simply setting up a View in GravityView that allows logged-in users to view, edit and delete the data themselves.

What’s a shortcode? It’s is a bit of text that you can add to your post or page that lets you perform complex functions without using code. A shortcode is a shortcut, and you can tell a shortcode because shortcodes are wrapped in square brackets, like this: [example].

The shortcode works everywhere

Some GravityView functionality only works inside a View, but the shortcode works across your whole site: in posts, pages, Views, WordPress widgets…everywhere! Continue reading →